PHP string to array keys

Question

I have a string that holds the property and key values to accessing a value on an object..

For Example, the string is "property_name[key1][key2][key3]", which relates to $obj->property_name[key1][key2][key3]

I've been trying to parse the string with a regular expression, but all of my attempts have ben in vain.

So far, my regular expression looks like this, but it won't get key2. ^(\w+)\[([^\]]+)\](?:(\[([^\]]+)\])+)

Am I on the right track or is there a better way to do this that I should try?

Thanks.

• silkfire: You're probably doing something wrong. Where do you get these strings from? Maybe you can save them as JSON instead?
• Craig Gardner: They're the names of fields in a form that have been changed. I'm trying to update a few fields in multiple records when a user changes a value from my form. I'm using javascript to save the field names to a hidden element to get these.

Answer 1

The regular expression could look like this:

^(\w+)(?:\[(\w+)\])+

Then your matches will contain the property name and the array keys. If the number of keys varies, use this to get the actual value: Using a path to an array item

• Craig Gardner: I ended up using a combination of the link here and this regular expression @^(\w+)(\[([^]].*)\])@

Answer 2

You should use AJAX instead and send a useful array with objects inside to the server that you can parse with PHP.

var changed_values = [
 {
 'part_of_form': 'XX',
 'field': 2,
 'subfield': 3
 },
 .......
 ]

Then in PHP you can loop over it:

foreach($_POST['changed_values'] as $changed_value) {
 ........
}

• Craig Gardner: This is exactly what I am trying to do.